


I can see a dream down there

by glovered



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Batcave, M/M, Possession, Sharing a Bed, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:17:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glovered/pseuds/glovered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Kevin team up to extricate Ezekiel from Sam, but the spell has some unfortunate consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I can see a dream down there

"Hey, Dean? Why is there a Google search about angel possession on my computer?"

Kevin's lucky Dean’s just wearing slippers this morning, because otherwise he'd be out the door in a second. As it is, when Dean smacks the laptop closed Kevin almost loses a hand.

Kevin jumps up from the table, holding his computer out of reach. "Hey!" Then he narrows his eyes at Dean. "What are you hiding?"

"Nothing," Dean says quickly. "Nothing at all. I didn’t use your computer to search for that. Why would I need to know about angel possessions?" He laughs. Loudly. "It’s not like Sam's been possessed by an angel of dubious intention to save his life or anything."

"Sam’s possessed by an angel?" Kevin says.

Dean shakes his head. Then says, "Maybe?"

"Holy shit." Kevin slumps in a chair. "Holy shit. Oh god."

Dean goes to make coffee, but only after threatening Kevin’s currently-hyperventilating self with certain death should he breathe one word of this to Sam.

 

 

 

"What do you mean ‘there’s an angel in him’?"

"In him," Dean repeats between gulps of coffee. "He's got an angel _in him_."

Kevin’s eyes widen.

Dean waves a hand. "Touched by an angel, whatever." Telling someone feels almost as good as it feels bad. A thick dread dredges up inside him and grows stronger when he sees his horror mirrored on Kevin's face.

"But," Kevin says. "That's not possible. Sam shouldn’t be able to support angel possession— His body should be all sick and explodey and—"

"Hey, hey, hey. No one’s exploding."

"It’s just…" Kevin finishes weakly. "Not possible."

"Of course it's possible. Sam was a vessel before this."

"Before?" Kevin repeats, voice faint.

Dean makes a vague gesture indicating it’s all over and done, moving on. "There was a— Lucifer. Thing."

And like that, Kevin's out for the count for the next hour. 

"Useless, I swear," Dean mutters.

 

 

 

 

Dean looks up from his very important work to Kevin, who’s conscious now.

"So, how do we get it out?" He’s all sweaty and nervous like he spent the last hour jerking off while Dean pored over the Bible.

"Porn?" Dean asks anyway, supportive.

A weird expression passes over Kevin's face, almost like he thinks Dean's the one who's been wasting time. "No. I have, uh," he says. "Look, I’m trying to get my head around this but I have some questions. Say Sam _is_ possessed. How do we get _the angel_ out of— mph." 

"Shut up," Dean hisses, clamping a hand over Kevin's mouth and most of his face. He looks around the main room and up the stairs to the landing. Sam could walk in from his run at any point, and this place echoes.

"Mrmhphmhm," Kevin continues.

"Ok, fine." Dean nods to the hall. "Let's go talk somewhere private."

He gets up and Kevin follows. Dean’s not sure yet how much he’s going to explain. All he knows is he’s been keeping this one under wraps for two months now, and it’s eating away at him. He hates lying to Sam. He thinks, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to tell someone. Plus, if he gave Kevin the low-down on Ezekiel, explained how that was the only thing that could save Sam’s life, at least maybe he wouldn’t feel so goddamn guilty all the time.

Dean opens a door and gestures for Kevin to get inside. As Dean swings it shut, Kevin looks around, wide-eyed. "This is your _room_?"

"Yeah."

"It looks like the arsenal," Kevin breathes.

"There's a bed," Dean points out. "Anyway. I'm not gonna try to take the angel out of Sam."

"Why not?"

"Because it’s impossible," he says. Because Sam needs the angel in him, healing him. Because Sam is dead if Ezekiel leaves and because Dean was the dumbass who couldn't find another way to heal him. "Sam's hurt," he explains. "Real bad."

Kevin looks at him like he’s crazy. "He seems ok to me."

"Ok, I know it doesn’t look like it, but believe me on this one."

Kevin frowns. "But… he's eating. He’s healthy. Not like before, during the trials. And he’s really tan and really built. He seems taller almost. And, like, hotter, too. Way hot."

Dean rubs at the bridge of his nose. "Kevin, man, keep it together."

At least Kevin looks sheepish. "He's healthier than I've ever seen him, is all I’m saying. He's on a run right now. He's fine."

"He's not fine," says Dean. "There was the church, and then he was almost dead, in the hospital." Dean hates hospitals. He hasn’t been able to get this one out of his head. "Sam wasn’t going to make it, but then this angel, Ezekiel—"

As Dean tells him, the incredulity on Kevin’s face dissolves into false hope, then eventually takes on the same sick feeling that Dean’s been carrying around in his chest everywhere.

"Ok," says Kevin at last. It’s clear he believes Dean now. "Ok. So...that’s terrible. But what if there’s still a way?"

Dean shakes his head. "There’s not. I’ve been trying to find some way, but all we can do is wait it out."

"No, you said it had been two months, right?"

"Yeah. So?"

"So, shouldn’t he be healed by now?"

"Well, there’s this deal where every time Ezekiel heals someone it takes longer to heal Sam. Something about angel juice and recharging his batteries."

"I...ok." Kevin crosses his arms over his chest. "I need to read up on this, but I don’t think that’s how it works."

"What?" 

"Well," he says. "If an angel touches a soul, it’s like the angel’s being supercharged. You said Ezekiel’s weak, right? Well, that doesn’t really make sense. Touching Sam’s admittedly weakened soul should at least rev him up a little. It shouldn’t only be dependent on time." 

"You’re saying Zeke’s pulling one over us?" Because Dean’s been getting this bad feeling every time Zeke comes out, like he’s only getting half a story, like maybe Zeke’s not entirely putting Sam’s health first.

"Uh, it’s possible?" Kevin squeaks.

"That dick," says Dean. "You know, he seemed shady as all get out, but at the time it was the only game in town."

As far as Dean knows, it’s still the only option they have. Even if it is true, it doesn’t change the fact that Sam’s getting better, Ezekiel didn’t lie about that.

"Look," he says. "I know it’s bad. But you can’t tell Sam." Kevin looks like he wants to argue, but Dean presses on. "You gotta promise me, man. I’ve been tripping over my feet to tell him too. But I can’t. He needs to heal, and there is no other way."

"I guess." Kevin frowns. "But let me at least take a look at the tablet. Angels haven’t exactly been straightforward with us before, right?"

"Ok, you come up with something, we’ll give it a try." Probably nothing’s going to come of it, but it’ll keep the kid occupied.

"You know, Ezekiel..." Kevin trails off. "Hm."

"What?"

"Nothing. Never mind. It just sounds familiar. Ok." Kevin stretches, then grabs a notebook. "Ok," he tells Dean. "You take care of Sam, ok? I’m gonna kick this thing in the ass!"

And he looks so excited sticking a pen behind his ear and hunching over the damn slab of rock again, Dean thinks he might have to do an intervention soon.

"You need a nerd hat or something?" he says. "You two want some private time?"

"Stop bugging me, I’m reading," Kevin says, smiling a little. Then, mostly to himself, "Hunters."

"Fussy," Dean mutters, and leaves him to it. He feels bad about dropping this on Kevin and then telling him there’s no way out. But part of him feels massively relieved.

And even if there’s about zero hope of extricating an angel who’s bent on staying in Sam, Kevin’s trying, and Dean goes away feeling a little lighter in his step.

 

 

 

 

Kevin is a total freaking badass. Kevin freaking Tran.

In under an hour, there are pages of scribbled notes spread out on the table in front of them and he’s got Dean mashing pelvis of newt into a fine powder. 

"This is great," Dean tells him with feeling.

"That needs to be evenly smashed," Kevin warns.

Dean grinds mortar to pestle more vigorously, suddenly extremely hopeful. They’ve gone from zero chance to a decent percent probability. No freaking angel’s going to shack up inside his brother without Dean’s say-so. Not today, not ever. 

The upstairs door clanks open, and of course it’s Sam. Perfect timing. When he comes down the stairs, Dean steps in front of Kevin so Sam won’t be tempted by the promise of research or something.

He looks from Dean to Kevin. Dean notices the sweat trickling down his jaw.

"You guys ok?" Sam asks, a mounting suspicion clear on his face.

"Men of Letters business," Dean tells him. "We’ll be done soon."

"Well," says Sam. "That’s convenient, because I am a—"

"Sam. Go take a bubblebath or something. You stink."

Sam shoots him a skeptical look even though Dean is pretty much offering him strawberry scented ecstasy. Sam always could see right through him.

Dean raises his eyebrows when Sam doesn’t move.

Sam raises his eyebrows back. "I ran twelve miles," he says. "Of course I stink."

"Exactly," says Dean. "Hup two."

Sam rips off his nasty t-shirt and throws it at him before he leaves the room, back muscles gleaming, and Dean, with hunter reflexes, easily ducks it.

"Anyway," he says, returning his attention to Kevin and their mostly finished spell. "This thing ready?"

Kevin’s got Sam’s shirt pushed to the corner of the table like he might swipe it, so Dean gives him a look and chucks it through the open door that leads to the kitchen before they continue.

Five minutes later, after mixing gunk with bone powder with other gunk, and reciting what sounds like a bad Enochian haiku, smoke begins to pour from the bowl. Dean has to squeeze his hand into a fist while he says the incantation, and the light that starts glowing out between his fingers looks super cool.

"That should be it," says Kevin, while Dean’s hand pulses. "That’s everything."

Dean thumps him on the back with his free hand. "Well look at you. You’re a regular Bill Nye."

"Who?"

Dean gives him a reproving look. "Anyway, that only took you like one freaking hour! You been dragging your feet this whole time or what?" Dean’s always wondered how it takes so long to translate one stone.

"I’ve told you before," Kevin says. "The tablet’s like a zip file! There’s a lot of information packed into each tiny piece. Sometimes it takes days. Weeks!"

"Alright, alright, chill your bacon. So how does this work?" The light in Dean's hand is getting kind of warm now, tingling a little. He doesn’t want to self-combust or anything.

Kevin gestures to it. "This spell acts as a sort of angel banishing sigil but less like it’s going to rip him out of Sam. It has something to do with friction and easing a something out of a human’s insides slowly."

"Ok, so I touch him," Dean confirms.

Kevin nods. "On the chest."

"And then Zeke zaps out of him? And Sam shouldn’t know what hit him?"

"I...think so."

"What do you mean, you ‘think so’?" Dean’s done a lot of iffy things, but playing Russian Roulette with Sam’s life isn’t something he wants to knowingly walk into.

"Well, there’s no mention of what it does to the vessel. But it keeps specifying gentle extrication, so it should be fine." Kevin squints at the stone, then surveys his notes. "Or at least that’s what it looks like."

"Dude," Dean says.

"Like, I’m only 99% certain it’s going to work."

Dean rolls his eyes. "That _is_ certain, man."

Kevin’s face breaks into a smile. "Yeah?"

"Freaking perfectionist." Dean’s thrilled. "Kevin," he says. "You’re awesome."

"Ha ha, thanks." Kevin shuffles his papers. "Ok, you’re a conduit for the spell right now, so you have to go do it soon or it’ll wear off and we’ll have to do it all over again."

Dean does not want to spend another twenty minutes chanting in Old Enochian, and also that was their last newt pelvis. So he stalks down the hall, trailed slowly by Kevin. 

"Sam?" he calls.

His voice echoes. He can hear the sound of running water from the good bathroom. 

"Well, no time like the present," Dean mutters, then says, louder, "Sammy?"

"What?" Sam’s voice is far away, like he’s under water.

"Let’s get this show on the road," Dean says half to Kevin but mostly to himself, and jimmies the bathroom lock.

He pushes the door open, steps inside, then closes the door again, pointedly on Kevin’s face. He scoffs to himself as he relocks the door behind him. Kevin may be a badass, but Dean’s not letting anyone objectify his little brother. 

And if he hadn’t, Kevin would have gotten an eyeful of this: Sam sudsy and half-submerged in the porcelain footed tub by the wall, legs too long to fold completely into the water. Sam’s sexy eyebrow raise of annoyance. The way Sam says Dean’s name when he’s spectacularly unimpressed. This is not for public consumption.

"Hey," Sam says, looking for all the world like Dean’s healthy little brother, hair slicked back and bubbles sliding down his neck when he sits up.

"Hey," says Dean, stepping toward the tub, hand fisted behind his back. "So, how’s it going?"

"Uh, good?" Sam says. He purses his lips. "Are you trying to pull something? Because you’re not exactly being subtle."

"No, no," Dean takes another step toward him. "I just, ah, got something I need to do."

Sam sits up straighter. "Seriously, you’re not gonna pour froofy bath salts into the tub again, are you? Because that was so not Charlie in here last time you did that."

"No." Dean comes to a stop with his knees at the edge of the tub. "No, I’m not going to— Ok, just let me—"

As Dean leans toward the tub, Sam’s face changes, going uncertain. His eyes widen, almost expectant. He doesn’t look nervous because he has no way of knowing. In fact, if this were a movie it would look like Dean’s about to lay one on him, but it’s not and Dean’s hand is shaking, at the ready.

Sam, for his part, just slides down a bit in the water.

"Just let me—" Dean says, drawing his hand from behind his back.

He sees a moment’s shock on Sam’s face at the bright glow of Dean’s fist, and then Dean stumbles back when Sam’s eyes flash blinding, laser blue.

"Stop," Ezekiel says. He stands up to Sam’s full height, water sloshing everywhere, and Dean gets an eyeful of everything before he glares Ezekiel full in the face.

"Dammit." He pulls back, but doesn’t hide his hand. Ezekiel’s already seen it. "You’re done in there," he says. "Get out now or we’re taking you out."

"I'm here to help," Ezekiel says, looking for all the world like Sam trying to placate Dean. Except his pleading expression looks off, like a robot trying to work human emotions. "I’ve done nothing but follow the terms of our deal. I’ll leave your brother when he’s healed. Banishing me now could harm him irreparably."

Now that Dean’s looking for it, Ezekiel isn’t actually telling him anything.

"Ok look, I needed you," Dean tells him. "In an impossible situation. And you helped, and thank you for that. But we helped you, too. You were weak and we let you in. So as far as I’m concerned, we’re square. Now get out."

Ezekiel stares out blankly. "I’d advise against using that spell," he says, changing tack. "You don’t even know if it’ll work. Leave me in, and you’ll know he’s safe."

Dean grins. "No can do, compadre." 

"Do you want your brother to languish?" asks Ezekiel, standing taller. "Think about it, Dean. You are lying to him, yes, but it’s for his own sake. Do you really value your fear over your brother’s life? Or are you going to do what’s best? What would Sam really want?"

That’s what clinches it. "You may be in his head," says Dean. "But you can’t play me. I know my brother better than you think."

Dean’s hand is pulsing in front of him like there are the last drops of Purgatory glowing in his veins. It’s now or never, he thinks, before throwing himself forward, into the tub with his boots still on and hands outstretched.

Sam’s fist comes at him, but Dean ducks it and his hand slaps sharp and wet on Sam’s chest just as his feet slip out from under him and he and Sam tumble into the water.

There’s a flash of blue and then a sickening jolt, like a dull shock of electricity running throughout the bath, the sort of thing health and safety videos warn you about with plugs and bathtime. It’s possible he blacks out for a second, because when he next remembers breathing it takes two tries to inhale, his lungs tight and skin tingling.

"Fuck!" Sam shouts over him. "Dean, what the hell?"

Dean struggles, happy as a pig in mud because Sam is, without a doubt, Sam again.

"You asshole!" Sam bellows and Dean gets a knee to the crotch and he takes on water.

"Arg! Sam!"

Dean fights back and then Sam gets Dean in a lifeguard hold, one arm under each of Dean’s, grabbing him by the shoulders to keep him up. They stop struggling in a tangled mess, in the tub that’s been emptied of all but a half foot of water and a lot of excess bubbles. 

"What the hell, Dean?" Sam growls into his ear.

"You uh—" Dean says, slowly extricating himself and turning to face Sam. Sam jerks his arms around his knees in a belated attempt at modesty as Dean’s eyes roam over him. Everything looks ok, Sam just looks kind of freaked and pissed, too. "You ok, Sammy?"

"No!" Sam’s face is stormy and there’s water everywhere. It’s great. Dean is overjoyed. "You told me to take a freaking bubble bath!" Sam says. "And then I get in and you come in like you have something to tell me! Something important! Then you attack me!"

"I wasn’t attacking you," Dean says. The tingling in his skin has all but faded. Now he just feels an overwhelming relief of being near Sam, who is whole and angel-free.

He smiles and Sam squints at him. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to, uh. I just wanted to tell you—" That you’re fine now. You’re you again. "That I—" Sam pushes his hair back from his face. Dean watches him, then catches himself. "I’m just glad you’re ok."

"Yeah?" Sam visually catalogs Dean for injuries, like they’ve just finished a job. Dean’s aware for the first time that his shirt is stuck to him all over, his arms goosebumping.

"Uh," Dean says.

Sam lounges back in the tub, eyes watchful and trained on Dean, whose heart is yammering now, some unnamed beat.

"Hey," says Sam. "You sure there wasn’t anything else you—"

There’s a loud pop. Dean jumps and yells, but realizes the next second that it’s just the plug. Dean just accidentally wedged it out with his shoe the way he’s sitting, and now the rest of the bathwater’s escaping down the drain.

"Ok, we’re done here," Sam mutters and clambers out, picking the sodden towel from the floor.

When he opens the door he pauses, and says, uncertain, "Uh, hi, Kevin."

"Hi," Kevin says. "Hi, Sam. You look good." He gives him a meaningful look. "Do you _feel_ good?"

"Um," Sam says. "Yes."

Kevin’s face lights up. "Good!"

"I’m going to my room," Sam says, shooting both him and Dean sidelong looks. "Keep an eye on each other, will you? You’re both being weird."

He leaves.

"Whoo!" Dean pumps his fist as Kevin comes into the bathroom.

"You think it worked? What happened?"

"There were the sparks and the blue," Dean says. "Then this jolt, the whole shizzam. Zeke didn’t do anything crazy like blow things up or kill me or anything so I think we’re good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! I think he’s gone." The reality settles in, and Dean gives another whoop. "Hell yes!"

"Then that’s it?" Kevin asks, looking a little shocked himself. "Just like that? Anything else happen?"

Dean thinks about Sam tipping his head back against the edge of the tub, watching him like he was about to start something.

"No, nothing," he says, and his mouth hurts from grinning. "The only thing is, I wish I could tell Sam, you know? This is like the best thing that’s happened all year."

"Yeah, that’s a good idea," Kevin says, rolling his eyes.

"You're sassy these days, you know that?" Dean punches him in the shoulder to show he’s joking. "You know, _you_ could use a wash. You look like a feral rat."

Kevin scrubs at his shoulder. "So, can I finally use…." he looks around the wrecked bathroom hopefully.

"No," says Dean. "Use the other ones." But as Kevin slopes away, Dean calls after him, "Hey, Kevin. Good job, man. I owe you one, really."

Kevin brightens like someone’s handed him a top of the line graphing calculator.

 

 

 

For once, things are looking up. If Sam’s really fine, then Dean’s fine, then they can get past this and pretend it never happened.

To make sure, Dean watches Sam like a hawk that afternoon, but not once does Sam do anything particularly angely or show signs of noticing a difference. He does cough once, and then shoots Dean an uncomfortable look when Dean reacts positively.

He’s so normal that it starts to freak Dean out actually, normal to the point of complete annoyance with Dean, shoving Dean off his chair and stamping to the other side of the room when Dean asks if "anyone else is in there" for the third time.

Dean’s so relieved, in fact, that he feels on edge all day, and finally leaves Sam alone to practice shooting tin cans of of fence posts. He misses at least five.

He’s jittery like he’s received a full-body electric shock. Which he has, granted. But the ache in his chest is probably where that one swamp monster hit him last week, and the dull headache increasing in severity is probably just allergies from the bunker library Sam and Kevin are slowly uncovering, reams of dust showering free out of every book they crack open off the shelf.

But hey, Dean realizes after lunch, he doesn’t have a dust allergy, and his bruises from the swamp thing were minimal and healed quickly because Dean Winchester is a grown man and doesn’t feel pain, as anyone could tell you (except Sam, who would probably exaggerate). So there’s no ready explanation.

He feels weirder as the day goes on, and by the time he gets to his room that night he’s pressing a hand over his shirtfront to try to lessen the acute pain there and all but collapses onto the bed. His head feels like it’s a melon being split open.

"Dean, do you have any—" Sam’s voice comes in through his door. "Oh my god. Dean!"

Dean waves Sam away, blind with headache. "It’s nothing," he says, gritting his teeth, which helps for a second but not really. He squeezes his eyes shut. "Totally nothing—"

Sam grabs his shoulder and Dean flails like a lost squid in a lake, the memory foam mattress swallowing him whole almost.

And then it _is_ nothing.

He stops struggling as the world rights itself. His head’s clear and his chest is back to normal.

Sam steps back, hands held up in front of him. "Are you—"

Dean clears his throat. "Totally fine. Fine. Yeah. Apparently."

"Ok, then," says Sam, cautiously.

Dean sits at the edge of the bed and rubs at his temple. He blinks a couple times, prods at his right pec, pushes the heel of his hand gently against his eyebrow while Sam watches. He has a stupid expression on his face and Dean tells him as much, and Sam says, "Oh my god, shut up."

Dean smiles and rolls his shoulders. It now feels like the headache was never there, his head clear and Sam looking uncertain by the door.

"So," asks Dean. "What’d you want?"

"Huh?"

"When you came in here. What were you going to ask?"

"Oh," Sam shifts from one foot to the other. "Nothing. I was going to ask you for advil, but it’s ok, I don’t think I need it anymore."

"You feeling ok?"

"Yeah, yeah," says Sam. "I’m feeling great."

Dean stares at him for a second, then clears his throat. "Well, great, then."

"Yeah, I’ll let you…" Sam makes a vague gesture to Dean’s bed, which might imply Dean’s going to do something other than sleep.

"Ok, yeah," says Dean.

"Yeah."

Instead of leaving, Sam stares at him some more, and Dean stares back. It’s an awkward, tense sort of silence.

"Uh, earlier," Sam starts, then clarifies, "In the bathroom."

He glances at the door, feeling cornered. Dean does remember the bathroom earlier. He remembers pulling off the spell, yeah, but if he’s honest with himself, he’s been reliving what he can of one specific moment all day— touching Sam with both hands, palms flat to his chest before gravity dragged them both under.

"When you came in," Sam says, and Dean feels helpless to do anything but look back to him now, wondering at how Sam hesitates before he says, "Like I said, it seemed like you had something to tell me. What were you going to—"

"I slipped," says Dean.

"What?"

"When I fell in. It was so dumb. And I don’t remember what I was going to tell you."

"Really? Because it seemed like—"

"Just forget about it," Dean says. "The floor was slippery. You probably splashed water everywhere!"

Sam gives him a serious look. "Well, if you do remember—"

Dean blinks, remembering again how slick his chest had felt in the two seconds before oblivion, suddenly seeing there’s something Sam’s trying to get at.

"—then you can tell me."

The room feels charged. Dean can’t stop staring at him. "I mean, did you have something you wanted to ask?" 

"Um," Sam takes a step toward him. "What if—"

And then Kevin’s voice echoes in from the hall. "Hey, Sam? Sam?"

Dean seizes a knife on the side table and starts sharpening it so he’s not that guy caught having a heated gazing thing with his brother. Again.

Kevin pops his head in, smiling. "Hey, Sam."

Sam nods. "Hi again, Kevin."

"I found something good— The research we were doing, I thought you’d want to see."

Sam smiles back, but it’s totally strained. Dean feels meanly validated. He can see the tightness by Sam’s eyes. "Yeah, thanks Kevin. I’ll be right there."

Kevin recedes. "Ok. You’re gonna love it."

"Jesus," Dean swears when Kevin's gone. He tosses the knife on the table, not looking at Sam.

"Try to get some sleep," Sam tells him, not unkindly, before he leaves. "You look like you need it."

 

 

 

 

Dean tries to remind himself that Sam is the one who should be feeling bad right about now. Sam is the one who was totalled in the trials and then had a dude riding around inside him for too long. Sam’s the one who’s needed a mainline to an angel to feel normal. He’s bound to start feeling like shit now that Zeke’s not in there healing things. All that, but damn it if Dean’s head doesn’t feel like a bag of bricks the next morning.

"What the hell?" he says, rubbing at his forehead. His throat is sore, too, and he can’t tell if he’s hungry or just sick. A vacant longing for something is hollowing out the space where his heart is.

Sam looks up when Dean trips over the step into the main room. Dean glances back at it. His balance must be off because of the headache.

"Everything’s fine," Dean says, half to himself. He pats his chest again where the feeling seems to be subsiding now. "Absolutely alright."

Sam squints at him, and a guilty flush heats the back of Dean’s neck. When Sam looks at him like that, he thinks Sam might actually know what Dean did.

Someone’s phone goes off, the South Park Theme.

Dean takes a step back, noticing Charlie for the first time. "Hey! You’re back!"

She waves from the corner. "Yeah, I’m back for the weekend. I needed more contacts. And I brought, like, zero clean underwear with me last time." She pauses and squints at him. "Woah, are you ok?"

"Yeah," he clears his throat, but the next still comes out on a croak. "Coffee."

"There’s some on the counter," she says, then, "Ok, only enough for one cup." Then, "Maybe a half cup. You snooze, you lose."

"You know, I bet they kill people for shit like that in Oz," Dean tells her, and goes into the kitchen to brew more.

He takes a few pills from the bottle he keeps in the inside pocket in his jacket, and watches the coffee drizzle into the pot. Images are coming back to him. Last night he had dreams where he and Sam had each other in octopus holds, limbs wrapped up tight around one another. It was unsettling, almost nice.

Yeah, Dean can’t wait for the coffee to clear that one away. He puts a mug under the stream. It fills the mug up hot and quick and he replaces the pot afterward to keep filling.

When he goes back into the main room, he deliberates for a second before he posts up directly across from Sam. Sam who looks fine, just like he claimed. The urge to ward off everything from Hell and Heaven and in between is embarrassing. Sam had the nearest brush with death, and that must be why Dean’s freaking out.

Well good, Dean thinks, blowing at his coffee. Now that he's identified why he's freaking out, he can tamp it down. He smiles to himself and drags a newspaper toward him.

Sam makes a displeased noise and shuffles his other papers back into order.

"Sorry, did I ruin your pile?" Dean says.

Sam holds out three minutes before he asks, "You sure you’re ok?"

"Swear," says Dean, crossing an X over his heart. His head feels a lot better actually. "Yeah," he says, smiling. "I am A-Ok. You’re the one who— I mean, how are you doing?" 

"Good," says Sam. He rubs at his chest. "I feel good."

"Ok, ok," Dean nods. "Good’s good."

"What’s going on?" Charlie whispers to Kevin.

Sam shakes his head and looks back to his book. Dean ignores the peanut gallery tittering in the corner and starts reading about a possible mermaid spotted off the coast of Massachusetts. Which is bunk. For one, Mermaids do not exist, and two, mermaids do not freaking exist.

He can feel still Sam’s eyes on him. Dean gives him a look over his paper and flips the page, pointedly, after which Sam clears his throat. Dean kicks him under the table.

"Really?" Charlie mutters, but neither of them pay her any attention. The contact between Dean’s foot and Sam’s shin is nice and he does it again for good measure.

"Ow," Sam tells him before going back to reading. Then, "You grinning like that is starting to freak me out."

Dean doesn’t even try to hide it. "You know," he muses. "I suddenly feel like everything’s gonna be ok, you know? The trials are over, we’ve got this sweet bunker, and interns—"

"Hey!" Kevin says.

"You’ve got to finesse it a little so it looks good on a resume," says Charlie. "You could put down experience as a...library tech?"

"And you’re good," Dean finishes. "Right?"

Sam rolls his eyes. "Yes, for the fiftieth time. Now, let me read."

"Yeah, you do that. You read."

"Oh my god," Sam says when he looks up to Dean watching him.

"What? Can’t a man be happy?"

"No, the other thing. Seriously, quit it. It’s distracting."

Sam knocks Dean’s leg away, which is when Dean realizes he’s been trailing the toe of his boot along Sam’s shin for the last five minutes at least.

"Oh," he says, and does some quick thinking. "I thought you were the table leg."

Sam gives him a look like he wonders if Dean normally strokes table legs. And if he’d of asked, Dean wouldn’t have been able to give him a good answer.

 

 

 

 

Dean reads three gas station rags half desperate after that, and thankfully finds a tiny article that looks like something right up their alley. After a few calls to the station a couple towns over and phone conversations with two eye witnesses, Dean's found them an actual salt and burn. He all but grabs Sam by the scruff of the neck and drags him to the car.

The old librarian’s buried in an abandoned graveyard, the kind that’s been left to nature and dry grass. Headstones break the ground like teeth and blackberry vines climb every fence. 

Sam takes in a deep breath once they get out of the car.

"You love old cemeteries," Dean says.

Sam shrugs and jerks his head to the iron wrought gate. "You think they build these things to keep the ghosts in?"

"Well, it’s obviously not working," says Dean.

They jump it.

"Back to the old stomping ground," says Dean, throwing Sam the shovel. 

"Why do I always have to dig?"

Dean gives him a look. "Really," he says. "Remember Bertramius Finch?"

"Fine," Sam says. "Maybe."

"I guess there is such a thing as convenient amnesia." But Dean understands. It feels like he’s always digging graves. "Now where’s old Mrs. McGee?"

Sam digs for half an hour and then they trade off. By the time the sun’s burnt its way through to one o’clock, Dean’s taken two turns, then climbed out again to eat berries and play poker on his cell.

"Remind me again," Sam huffs at somewhere past five feet deep. "Why we decided to do this in the middle of the day?"

"Eh, no one’s around," Dean says. The graveyard’s a patch of nothing in the middle of more nothing. "Yeah," he says, laying back on the pillow of his jacket in the high grass. "Today just seemed like a really good day."

Sam pops his head out of the grave to glare. He has sweat-streaked dirt rubbed over his jaw. 

Dean chuckles. "Ok, apparently not."

He watches him for a second, Sam bending out of sight then straightening to toss moist shovelfuls of dirt out of the hole. Their lives feel so uncomplicated. Yeah there are angels running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but Sam’s ok, and Dean has this wild urge to stop him shoveling, to move to the edge and do something. He doesn’t know what.

"You know," Sam says some time later, throwing a shovelful of dirt in an arc over where Dean’s lying. "If Mrs. McGee wasn’t killing school kids in the stacks, I’d almost want to let her haunt the place. Look at her headstone. ‘Devourer of books, lover of life.’"

"Be stuck in eternity, rereading the same ten pages? You’d want that?"

"I’m just saying, haunting a library doesn’t seem terrible," Sam says, his shovel hitting wood with a crack. "And you’re right."

"Huh?" Dean looks over in time to catch Sam’s quick smile.

"About today," Sam says. He reaches down to pry up a board. "Today’s not half bad."

Dean sits up to watch the pull of Sam’s shoulders, his soft expression in profile. The urge to go to him is so powerful it feels like it’s already happening. Dean flexes his fingers and gets to his knees.

Sam turns. He gives Dean an inscrutable look but only says, "Come help me with this."

Dean stands and pats himself down for his lighter, then goes around the perimeter of the grave to snag the large bag of salt — too large for this job. Then there’s a violent wind and he spins in time to see Sam thrown out of the grave.

Dean hurls salt and the ghost burns out of sight.

"Sam!" Dean yells, grabbing his knife.

He sees Sam in a pile by the next gravestone. Dean slices the entire bag of salt open into the grave, squirts lighter fluid, and drops the flaming bic. The ghost — high-collared dress and wire rims, half a foot behind him it turns out — looses a bloodcurdling scream, goes up in flame, and is gone. Crows take flight from the trees. Dean tumbles toward Sam.

"Don't worry," Sam tells him, getting up on an elbow. He winces and draws his arm up to his chest. It’s gashed, blood dripping from his forearm from where he’s pressing down. Never, never let your guard down on a hunt. Dean’s hands are sticky with blackberry. He’s so stupid.

"God dammit," he says out loud. "I should’ve been watching. Here, stay here. Let’s stitch that up."

"I’m ok, I’m ok," Sam’s repeating.

He sits, leaning back against _Jeremy, age 14_ with his legs stretched out in front of him. Dean leaves him and has to climb a crumbling tree to get back over the fence to the Impala, stupid and clumsy while Sam bleeds out.

It takes ten minutes and he only feels better once he’s jogging back toward Sam, whiskey in one hand, one of the small needles they kept stuck in an actual pincushion in the glove compartment in the other.

"Ready?" says Dean, kneeling by his side. "Stay still."

"Why’re you using the green thread?" Sam wheezes after the first stitch.

Once Dean stitched him up green on St. Patrick’s day and called him Leprechaun Threads for a week.

"This is not like some pointed thing," he says. "It’s the first one I grabbed!"

He finishes up in a minute flat, Sam’s hand warm on his thigh the entire time, a needed connection. 

"You totally hit your head," Dean tells him.

"I’m fine," Sam says, grimacing. "I’m just anticipating the years of librarian jokes."

"Future me is a dick," Dean agrees. "Come on."

They make it back over the fence. Sam is awesome and kind of a ninja and somehow manages despite a possible concussion and only having use of one arm.

"Ok," says Dean once they’re in the car, taking a deep breath. "Back to the lab."

He looks over to Sam and a crazy thought strikes him. Crazy and great.

"You still in a good mood after that?" Sam says. He touches his hair tentatively. Dean starts the car.

"You’re not healing," Dean wonders aloud.

Sam frowns. "No, I’m not. I’m bleeding out on the upholstery. I’m going to have a mean bump on my head. Stop smiling and drive."

Dean drives, but he can’t hold back the grin. Sam’s not healing, which means it worked. Where before Ezekiel would have healed him, Sam is all flesh and blood now, no angel in sight.

By mutual agreement, they don’t say much on the way back. After a while, Dean turns on some slow rock, and Sam does say, "That’s not going to work," but when Dean looks over, he’s dozing a little against the window anyway. 

 

 

 

Sam’s surly all afternoon when they get back, which Dean blames for his own dip in mood, but despite this, Sam ends up shoving in to sit next to him at the long table. 

Dean doesn’t mention it, just scoots over to give him room.

And a couple minutes later, he has to move over because Sam’s shoulder’s pressed back against his.

And then he and Sam reach for a pen at the same time.

Their fingers get all mixed up together and Dean snorts and drops it. It skitters away, and Sam says, "Dean," like it’s something he purposefully did.

"Sam," Dean says, feeling inexplicably winded.

Sam gets up to do something, finally, thank god, and Dean sits back in his chair, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, rubbing at his eyes until he sees stars.

"Dean," Kevin whispers. When Dean opens his eyes, Kevin's leaning over the table toward him. "How is he?"

"Pretty beaten up. Which is good."

Kevin’s face clears. "I can’t believe it worked!"

"Yeah, right?" Dean says, feeling distracted. "You know, I should probably go find him."

"Are you—" Kevin says.

Dean stands.

"Hey."

"What?"

"You look kind of weird," Kevin says.

"Wow, always with the flattery," Dean says.

Kevin raises his eyebrows. "No, you’re really pale. And it looks like your arm hurts. Did you get hit, too?"

Dean looks down and sees he’s favoring his left. "Huh, I think I must’ve bruised it," he says, feeling light-headed. Just another unknown injury. "You know," he tells Kevin. "I think I’m going to go take a power nap. Hold down the fort, would you?"

 

 

 

 

Waiting safe in his iron-trap room later that night, Dean stares into the dark. There’s this feeling, this deep feeling of trepidation, of something not right, and it keeps him up for hours. He can tell because the glow of the clock on the bedside table casts the long shadow of his shoulder on the wall and he keeps rolling over to check as the minutes blink by.

"Ok," he tells himself, when it’s four AM and he’s still wide awake. There’s a persistent, uncomfortable squeeze in his chest he’s trying to ignore. It feels like maybe he swallowed a lot of air, or almost like something very important to him has gone missing. Maybe if he goes to talk to Sam, he thinks, he’ll be able to sleep.

It’s only once he’s out the door, heading the three doors down the hallway to Sam’s room, that he realizes the time and query might be enough for Sam to wake up royally pissed.

He stops where he is, considering. He does feel better, now that he’s up and about. His chest doesn’t feel quite as tight, so maybe it was the air thing. He tries to burp, but fails, so tries again, and succeeds. He feels a bit better still.

He looks back toward his own room. But then he looks back to Sam’s door. He considers. There’s an appealing quality to waking Sam up after midnight, something fun. He thinks, it would be good to see him right now.

He takes a step in that direction and then stops. He remembers that Sam is not going to be very impressed when he asks Dean what he wants, and Dean can only come up with a shrug.

Dean nods to himself. That decided, he paces back toward his door, but then remembers he’s Sam’s brother and he can wake him up whenever he feels like it. There’s no reason to go back to his own room. It’s boring there, and Sam has all the best books.

There seems to be no easy decision. As he ponders this, the door he’s standing in front of cracks open.

"Dean?" Charlie asks. She’s limned by her room lamp, in pajamas. Past her, Dean can see a room that’s almost entirely nerd-themed.

"Oh, uh, hello," he says in a tone that says, _fancy meeting you here_. "Did I wake you up?"

"No, no." Charlie waves an arm. "My Diablo III guild is mostly based in Australia, so I’m up at this time of night all the time."

"Oh, good. That’s...that’s great," says Dean. "Hey, don’t they miss you when you’re in Oz?"

"Yeah, it sucks for them. I’m a barbarian and I’m super indispensable. So, what’re you doing?"

"Oh, you know." Dean shrugs, then says uncertainly, "Thinking about waking up Sam."

"Oh, that’s nice of you."

"Yeah?"

"No, he’s going to be totally pissed. Although the bonds between siblings are wholly a mystery to me, as I’m an only child, I saw how grumpy he got when you woke him up from a nap to ask him for a dollar a couple weeks ago, and it wasn’t exactly understanding if you catch my drift."

"Right," he says. "Thanks, Charlie."

"Yep."

She closes her door.

Dean stares at Sam’s door for a very long minute. There is no reason to go see him, he tells himself, once and for all. He’s fought the urge plenty of nights since they’ve started staying in the bunker so there’s no reason to give in now.

So he turns and trudges back to his room. It’s a hike, but he’s probably just getting tired. His head is starting to ache, and he goes to settle in for another half hour of staring blindly up at the dark ceiling.

It doesn’t do much, though. But even if he hadn’t been awake, he suspects, he’d have felt the quiet awareness of Sam entering the room at four-thirty.

His headache suddenly disappears, for one. The door smooths soft over the floor on hinges that are mysteriously well-oiled given the age of the bunker, and Dean may have been half-asleep after all because it feels like a dream, a real good one, when Sam slides in next to him.

The mattress sinks as Sam arranges his giant body, and Dean fights against rolling toward him. After a minute of this, Sam whispers, "It’s really hard to move on this thing. There’s a you-shaped indent."

"Seriously?" Dean whispers back, disbelieving. "It’s _my_ bed."

"Move over."

Dean does. The sheet’s twisting between them, and Sam’s warm up next to him, heating Dean everywhere. Dean scoots over the furthest he can until he’s got a knee pressed into the wall.

He keeps his eyes open and resists the warm call to touch Sam that moves over him like honey. He’s tired, he doesn’t think about it, he just squeezes his hands into fists, and after an indeterminate amount of time, realizes that he’s been holding his breath in efforts to remain flattened out of reach.

As he waits, tense, he pretends to fall back asleep. Sam’s obviously come here for a reason. They don’t make a habit of sharing beds, so there’s an inevitable conversation here, and Dean doesn’t want to have it.

Sam starts it anyway, whispering again in the dark. "Dean?"

Dean smashes his face into the pillow, rubbing his face against 170 thread count and feeling disgruntled. "Oh my god, go away." 

This, of course, doesn’t stop Sam. "Dean, about yesterday—"

"Forget about it."

"No," says Sam. "I mean, I keep thinking— Were you going to, like...do something? You can tell me."

Sam doesn’t know about the exorcism, Dean tells himself. Here's hoping he's just talking about Dean falling in the bath with him.

"Leave it to you to make a normal bathroom thing awkward," Dean says, trying to infuse as much ‘you’re stupid’ into his voice as possible. It doesn’t help that everything in him wants to roll toward Sam, to press his body up against Sam’s with his face to Sam’s neck and grab him all over.

He manfully resists, to the point of tugging a pillow to hug between them.

"I mean," Sam says. "If you did have something you wanted to talk about, I wanted you to know that it’s fine."

"What?" Dean says. "No, nothing to talk about."

"If you had a secret—" Sam starts, and Dean freezes, doesn’t know what to do. So Sam does suspect something. "Don’t beat yourself up about it, ok?"

Dean could tell Sam everything, tell him that it was necessary and it saved his life, but he sees suddenly, and with great clarity, that Sam is not going to understand, not at all. He remembers Ezekiel, going into Sam’s head, and thinks hell, if he were in Sam’s shoes, Dean probably wouldn’t understand either.

"Believe me," Dean tells him. "I got that one covered."

Sam sits up, a sudden movement. "I knew it," he says. "What the _hell_ is going on?"

Dean grabs his pillow like it’s a shield. "Um. Nothing?"

"Nothing-nothing?" Sam says, a dangerous edge to his voice. "Because I’ve been feeling weird all day, Dean. And not normal weird."

"What's normal weird?"

"Dean!"

This is the worst conversation to have. Ever. Dean briefly entertains just spilling the beans right there. Because maybe he’s stupid. Maybe he’s had enough of lying to Sam.

"You’re not going to like it," he says.

"I knew it." The wind goes out of Sam’s sails. He stretches out on the bed. "I knew there was something. What is it, a curse?" He sounds ready for any stupid thing Dean could’ve done. Which is fair, given the circumstances.

"Not a curse," says Dean, fumbling for a story that’s not too off the mark. "It was uh, a spell."

Sam takes a while to respond. When he does, it’s very incredulous. "A spell."

"Yeah, um," Dean says, and maybe he’s definitely _not_ over lying to Sam, because next thing he blurts out is, "Yeah, Kevin was messing around, you know how kids are, and then something went wrong and I’m not sure exactly what, but, uh. That happened."

" _Messing around_?" Sam’s voice gets especially high at the end.

"Ok, calm your shit," says Dean. "I’m figuring it out. I’m sure Kevin was just trying to help."

"And you _let_ him?"

"No! No, that’s not how it happened. Jesus, you think I’d—"

Sam throws himself back onto the pillow. "I knew all this was too good to— Do you happen to know what the intent of the curse was? Did it have anything to do with being...near each other?"

"It’s not a curse," Dean starts to insist, but it’s half-hearted and he pretty much just feels miserable. "I don’t know what it was for. Just ask Kevin I guess."

"Ok." Sam sighs noisily, then Dean can hear him change gears. "Ok, what’s important is, I’m _fine_ and you’re _fine_ , so we’ll deal with it. This isn’t the worst thing that could have happened." He rolls to the side of the bed like he’s about to get up. "Come on."

"No," says Dean, and reaches out and grabs Sam’s good arm. Which feels like the best thing since sliced bread. He grips tighter.

"Dude!" Sam jerks away.

"Uh," says Dean. "Morning. Ok?"

"What?"

This lie is so tenuous. Dean feels sick and tired, and just plain doesn’t want to deal with the fallout now when his head is all messed up. All he knows is Sam should stay in bed so Dean can spend another hour or five trying to feel less guilty and remember that he saved Sam when he let Zeke ride around inside him.

"Dean," Sam says, like a warning, but Dean reaches out to push him back down onto the mattress. Sam stills. Dean can feel his heart beating hard through his shirt front.

"Morning," Dean insists, searching out the glitter of Sam’s wide eyes in the dark. "Let’s just deal with it in the morning. Ok? Sammy?" 

Sam snorts. "Because that always helps."

"Poor kid’s probably wracked with guilt already. We’re fine, like you said. Let’s talk to him tomorrow."

It might be Dean’s imagination, but he thinks he feels Sam scoot an inch toward him. In any case, he can feel Sam’s breath on his face when he finally says, "Yeah. Okay."

 

 

 

Thank god there’s signal in the bunker. Dean shoots Kevin a quick text early the next morning, then three more before Sam wakes up. Hopefully Kevin checks his cell because playing Sam will be a lot harder than convincing some cop he’s the FBI.

"A curse?" Sam says straightaway when he bursts into the main room with Dean on his heels.

"A spell," Dean corrects again.

Kevin sidles awkwardly along a bookshelf so the long table is between himself and Sam. So he definitely got the texts. Across the table from him, Kevin looks about half of Sam’s height. Dean makes a mental note to buy him a burger when this is all over.

"Yeah, totally, a spell," Kevin says, his tone is one of utter resignation. He doesn’t meet Dean’s eye. 

"Why’d you think casting a spell on us would be a good idea?" Sam asks. "After everything, Kevin."

Kevin looks stumped. He casts around for a good answer. "Um, why did I? Well, I’ll tell you why."

They all wait. Kevin finally shrugs.

"Dean," Sam says, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks pretty scary, Dean thinks. Only if you’re a shrimpy kid, of course, but yeah, scary.

Dean clears his throat, eyes holding on Sam who jerks his chin toward Kevin like Dean’s supposed to play parent. Dean complies, rolling his eyes.

"That was very bad," he tells Kevin. "Very, very bad. Don’t do that again."

Sam gives him a look like he’s useless, then takes over. "Kevin, man," he says, coming to place his hands on the table. "Please explain why you thought it was a good idea to cast a freaking _sex curse_ on us."

He whispers the last part and Kevin’s jaw drops almost as wide as Dean’s. In the following ten seconds you could hear a pin drop, and not just because of all the bunker’s high ceilings, arches, and awesome acoustics.

"I didn’t try to cast—" Kevin stutters, voice weak.

"What then?"

"I just wanted you guys to stop fighting?"

Dean grips a chair back. 

Sam continues to look scandalized. "Fighting?" he finally manages.

"Yeah." Kevin’s tone gains more resolve as he gains momentum. He looks Dean’s way and says, "Yeah. You guys are always arguing, and I happened to be flipping through a book—"

"Yeah, real smart," Dean growls, before he remembers Kevin’s lying through his teeth.

Sam puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder. "Dean, let him talk."

"—and most of the spells were weird," Kevin says. "Or wish stuff, but this one was for understanding and togetherness." He makes elaborate air-quotes.

"Togetherness?" Sam repeats.

Kevin frowns Dean’s way, and when he looks back at Sam, his face takes on an angelic expression. "Yes, togetherness. I was just trying to help. But I now see how that didn’t work out the way I thought it might." He hangs his head.

"You think?" Dean mutters.

Sam sighs and sits at the long table. "Kevin, I can see how you might have thought that would help us. But we’re not fighting. Dean may be annoying—"

Dean steps forward. "Hey!"

"—but he’s my brother. Arguing is normal. I totally— you know, trust him and stuff and we already really get each other—"

Kevin shrugs. "Well, apparently not."

"What?"

"I mean, if you did, wouldn’t the spell have not worked? Or wouldn’t it have worn off or something?"

Dean looks to Sam, who looks back. Something pings in his chest.

"Or I guess if it’s a sex curse you need to—" Kevin starts.

"That’s ok, stop talking," Dean says. He holds up a hand to Kevin. "You know what? This is none of your business and you obviously did the spell wrong."

Kevin looks entirely offended. "You know, I’m confused," he says to Dean. "It should have worked. I set up the spell correctly, so it had to have been _the execution of this very straightforward spell_ that went wrong."

"It was not straightfor—" Dean cuts himself off with a glance at Sam. "See? This is what happens when we team up with civilians."

"I’m not a civilian—"

"Yeah, you really are."

"Come on, Dean," Sam says, and, like Kevin’s not in the room with them, "You’re being too hard on him. He meant well. And he’s only eighteen."

Kevin looks crestfallen, shoulders sagging. 

Sam sits down at the table and gestures at the chair across from him. When Kevin comes and sits, looking rumpled and upset, Sam tells him, "This stuff is dangerous. One wrong move and you could have got people killed. Magic is dangerous no matter which way you slice it."

"Maybe it was the Latin you had a problem with?" Sam says.

"Yeah, Kevin. Apparently you can’t even speak Latin," Dean mutters.

Kevin sneers, "No one speaks Latin. It's a dead language."

"Hey," Dean snaps, like a person who is affronted on behalf of scholars everywhere, even if he, too, can’t exactly speak it.

"What? It’s true," Kevin says.

"Ok, guys, just stop." Sam rubs a hand over his face. "No hard feelings. It’s done, and we’ll figure it all out."

Kevin’s eyes flicker to Dean. "What?"

"You and me," says Sam, smiling. "We’ll figure it out together. Come on, show me the book you used."

"Uh." Kevin shifts, then comes out with, "I burned it."

"What?" Sam, panicked now, looks over his shoulder at Dean, and while his back’s turned Kevin makes wild, angry arm gestures Dean’s way.

"For the spell," Kevin says when Sam turns back. "It said I had to burn it."

"Ok, well," says Sam, at a loss.

"It says it’ll wear off!" Dean blurts.

"What?" asks Kevin.

"What?" says Sam.

Dean seizes upon this, wondering why he hadn’t he thought of it before.

"The spell. It totally wears off after a while."

"Oh," Sam says. "How long will it take?"

"I don’t...I don’t know?"

"Well," Sam says. "We’ll do what we can. For now," he turns and points at Dean. "You stay away from me."

"What!" Dean says, affronted even though he in no way wants to be a part of this situation. "Me? I didn’t do anything!" Kevin laughs, but cuts off when Dean turns. "Shut up, Kevin."

"Go do whatever it is that you do," Sam says. "When you’re avoiding research."

"Fine," says Dean. "Good...uh...good luck."

He makes to leave the room quickly as Sam says, gently, "It’s ok, Kevin. Come help me track down the spell."

Dean tries to stop smiling, feeling the sweet relief of ducking all the fake research Kevin’s going to have to sit through. But he slows as he’s reaching the door, and he’s shuffling his feet with this overwhelming conviction there’s some reason he needs to stay in this room.

He pats his pockets. He’s got his keys, so it’s not that. Wallet?

"Ok, I’m leaving," he tells the room at large. But then he stands there a minute anyway, fiddling with his sleeve.

"You know, you don’t have to go," Sam says. "You can help us. Just sit far away from me."

No thank you. Dean’s getting the fuck out of there. "Yeah, I really do—" he says. "—have to go. You guys have a good one."

Only Dean can’t make it out of the room. It is somewhat worrisome. He keeps his cool while he stands there, stuck with one hand on the door frame, the hallway stretching out before him like a tunnel to the promised land. Something's going on. There is an edge he’s missing, he thinks, and if he can find it, he can maybe start putting things together in his mind. 

He imagines walking out the door. He could go to his room a couple doors down, or the bathroom of awesome at the very end. He could even go take a nice visit to the garage and hang out with the awesome cars. But no. No, he is caught in a force field, a headache he can feel building, threatening to break his head like an egg. He gets a creeping feeling, suddenly, remembering how he felt last night, thinking maybe last night he was shoving down strange impulses, too.

"Dean?" Sam sounds more worried this time, like he knows. Like he’s feeling it, too.

"I’m going," he says again with supreme effort, because even the thought of leaving Sam is too much at the moment.

He glances over his shoulder at them. Kevin is regarding his computer screen with despair like he’s a lost little kid and Sam is frowning his way.

Dean casts one last longing glance down toward his room and then turns. "Well, looks like this is the best place to hang out," he says, stomping over to a chair in the farthest corner of the room. "Even if it is in a room full of nerds."

"You're holding my book on Phoenician Proto-Canaanite alphabet," Kevin points out.

Dean looks down at the book he snagged. So he is. "Shaddup," he says.

Charlie enters the room, still in pajamas and with a mug of hot chocolate. Dean seriously envies her life right now.

The tension in the room is obviously palpable, because after Charlie gets comfortable in an armchair she stops and looks at each of them. "Um," she says uncertainly. "What’d I miss?"

 

 

 

"Is it warm in here?" Dean says an hour later, just as Sam says, "I wish this room had windows."

They look at each other, furtively, Sam across the room with an unhappy cast to his face .

"Well this just got creepier," Dean says.

Sam'S frown only deepens when Dean raises his eyebrows at him. Dean wishes he could say that hey, this is a stupid not-really-sex-curse-probably-angel-spell situation, and Dean should be given credit for dealing so well.

He nods to the papers spread out on the table in front of Sam and Kevin. "Any luck?" He asks, even though he knows what the answer’s going to be already.

"Sort of," says Sam, which is a surprise because, well, _they are not actually sex cursed_.

"Oh really?" He looks to Kevin, who glares back.

Sam starts in on some spiel. "This sort of curse—"

"Spell."

"—is actually pretty common. They’re prevalent in just about every type of occult, ranging from your basic proximity curse to full blown fuck-me-or-die-resisting curses."

Dean gulps.

"I don’t think," Sam says hastily. "That that's the one we have."

"But who can tell?" Kevin says mildly.

"Kevin," Dean warns. "Shut the hell up."

"Dean," Sam says, jerking his head to Kevin who has the stupidest fake hurt look Dean’s ever seen. Sam says, "Anyway. They’re technically not harmful. Just annoying until you find a way to reverse it."

Kevin laughs. "Unless it’s the bad kind, remember? Then you’ll die if you don’t—"

Dean stands up, clenching his fists. "Kevin, I swear to god—"

Sam stands, too. "Dean."

"What?"

"Can I talk to you for a sec?"

Dean stares at him, then at Kevin, who’s smirking. The asshole.

"Dean, come with me."

Sam stalks out of the room, and Dean doesn’t notice he’s followed him until he’s in the hall with him.

"Dammit!" He wasn’t going to give in, but here they are. He makes a mental note to find out what the freak is happening, once he can get some alone time for one second, that is.

"Dean," Sam says patiently. "Be nice to Kevin."

Dean gapes at him. "You see what he did?" he asks. "Did you see his face? He’s turning us against each other!"

Sam squints a little. "What?"

"He smirks at me when your back is turned!"

"Why would he be doing that? You realize you sound crazy, right?"

"Uh." Dean realizes he shouldn’t draw any attention to his own involvement in this, he should just stick to the story.

"It’s Kevin," Sam says. "And he feels bad for what he did but he’s _working_ on it, Dean. He’s trying to fix it, unlike some people who are just sitting around in the corner."

"This is very hard for me, I’ll have you know," Dean says. "The whole thing is just—"

"Just what?" says Sam. He looks angry almost. "Gross? Is that it? Look, I know this must be _hard_ for you, but I can assure you it’s more difficult for me, so if you’ll just be mature about this, maybe we can reverse the curse and that way you can go back to not having to worry about this, or whatever."

Something about Sam’s verbal diarrhea seems weird to Dean, but he’s distracted by the feel of Sam’s hand on his neck. He’s not sure when Sam put it there.

"So if you’d be less of a jerk," Sam's saying.

"Hey Sam, you're acting all sex cursey," Dean points out.

Sam notices the hand, and jerks away from Dean.

"Sam?"

"Just give me a minute," Sam says, walking away.

Dean paces after him, five feet behind down the hall. "Sorry, I have to follow you," he calls. "The spell."

Dean's playing it up, he knows, but really it does seem impossible for him to stay put. He tries to walk away, but finds he really doesn't want to. He could, if he did want to, but he knows it would be better to follow Sam.

It's about that point that Dean gets a sinking feeling. He did something, didn't he? He did something bad when he wrenched Zeke out. Something happened when he used the spell on Sam, something resulting in some invisible string winding them together and setting him on a course.

"You know?" Sam calls over his shoulder. "How did you manage to take a spell that could be really managable and make it something obnoxious?"

Dean jogs to keep up. "What?"

"Go away," Sam calls. "Let me think." He yanks open the next door he gets to, the heavy door of a storeroom, and strides in. 

"Sam, wait—" Dean’s chest pangs. "God dammit."

He strides in through the door after him, "Sam, you have to listen to me!" he says, and slams it shut. 

Just as Sam yells, "Dean, wait!"

"Oh," Dean says, following Sam’s angry panic face to the door handle Sam’s staring at. Dean jiggles it. "Huh. That...appears to be locked."

"Why is this my life?" Sam wonders aloud. He slumps against the wall.

"Kevin or Charlie'll come get us out," Sam says. "It'll be like, five minutes."

Sam looks like even he doesn't believe it, like he'd rather be anywhere else. Which is fair. Dean can name ten things he’d rather fight with one hand tied behind his back then be where he is now, locked in a small, windowless room with Sam.

 

 

 

So there they are, trapped in the closet. They're trapped in the fucking closet.

"I don't believe this!" Dean slams his fist against the door, but it's heavy iron and all that happens is his hand flattens like a pancake against it. He shakes it out, wincing.

Sam doesn’t even try breaking it down. Instead of continuing to beat against something that was clearly made for withstanding great force, he's sitting with his back up against the far wall, a sack of salt for an armrest.

Dean affords him a frown before turning his attentions back to the door, hefting a rusted chair and slamming at the handle a couple times. He’s keeping his head on straight, thinking about the exit plan. They won’t die in here, but he'll be damned if he’s going to be stuck in a closet with Sam. Cold-minded panic is mingling with happy feelings at how close Sam is, just a couple feet away. 

"So that’s it?" he asks between grunts. "You giving up?"

Sam settles back more comfortably and says, "I gave up like five minutes ago."

"Great," Dean says, smashing the chair against the door one last time. "Because that's going to get us out of here." He drops the chair and looks around for something else to use. There are shelves of files in the room, and not much more. He says, patting himself down again just to be sure, "No guns. This is what happens when we get too settled. This is a lesson."

"They'll notice we’re gone," Sam repeats. "So let's just wait until we hear one of them come by and we’ll be out, just like that."

Dean raises his eyebrows, incredulous. "Just wait till someone comes by," he repeats.

Sam spreads his hands. "Dude, there is literally nothing else we can do right now. No one can hear us from the main room. Each of these rooms is like a lead freaking box."

"Yeah," Dean says. "If there's one thing that could be said for the Men of Letters, it's that they knew how to keep things secure."

"Charlie, at least, is bound to come by sooner or later."

"To get her battery cord or whatever. Wait, doesn’t she keep that thing on her at all times?"

They stare at each other helplessly.

"They should all be going to bed soon," Sam says, trying to convince both of them. "It's almost midnight."

Dean nods. "Yeah, I mean, they have to, right?"

They _have to_. The closet's in the same hall as all their bedrooms, and it's not like Kevin and Charlie are both going to decide to sleep in the library. At least one of them has to go to bed at some point soon, Dean thinks. It’s not like he and Sam are going to be stuck here forever.

Dean stares at the door a little longer, but eventually his shoulders slump. "Ok," he says. He glances back to where Sam’s sitting. He thinks about joining him but, on second thought, sitting next to Sam who thinks he's been sex cursed while Dean's having actual problems controling himself like a freaking twelve year old with a crush. He paces. "I don't have to like it," Dean says. "But it makes sense."

Sam pulls out a book, settling in. _Latin for Demon Hunters_.

"Lucky you keep a book in your pants at all times," says Dean. "Got something to read."

"Yep." Sam's expression is far too smug. "It’s not luck. I plan ahead."

"Right," Dean mutters.

Sam opens the book and pretends to read.

 

 

 

Of course, that was then.

This is now. Dean tugging at his collar, sweat hot on his neck. He’s still pacing, but the air’s oppressive around them and everything in him wants to sit next to Sam, shoulder to shoulder.

"Hey, I just remembered something," Sam says, which never means anything good. "Didn't they decide tonight was bonding night or something?"

Dean stops with a hand against the wall. "What?"

"Kevin and Charlie. Didn’t they mention something?"

Dean groans. "That's right. Settlers of Catan."

"Star Trek," Sam corrects. "Star Trek of Catan."

"That game takes like three freaking hours!"

"Longer if you're drinking."

They’ll probably never go to bed, they have everything they need in the library. There's a bathroom off the main room and food and—

"We're never getting out of here," he says. "Are we?"

Sam looks like he wants to tell him otherwise, but can’t bring himself to lie. "At least we're not stuck in that one room with the taxidermied monsters," he offers.

"Damn." Dean gives up and collapses into the empty space near Sam.

"Yeah," says Sam.

 

At some point Dean gives in and sits against the wall, a foot away from Sam because that’s as far as the wall allows.

An hour's passed and his butt may be falling asleep. Dean notices Sam’s very interesting book is folded over his lap. He offered to share it, their one source of entertainment, but Dean had just given him a look and then tipped his head back against the wall to settle in for a long interim period with his eyes closed.

He tells himself, this is like any other hunt— yeah it's boring, but they're on a stakeout, lying in wait. When he shifts, he feels Sam’s shoulder barely brush his. Dean wants to ask how the hell they ended up touching, but he’s worried it’s part his fault, so he contents himself with tapping his fingers on his knee, swallowing dryly every once in a while and waiting it out.

Sam lets out a sigh now that, in the quiet sweat of the room, throws Dean into the kind of headspace that can get a guy killed in some places.

He rubs his hands over his jeans. Sweaty palms. He flicks his eyes to Sam, surreptitiously.

"So," Dean says. He sneaks a look but Sam’s eyes are still closed. "What we were talking about out there—"

Sam snorts. "Talking."

"Fine, arguing, whatever. You said something about how it’s harder for you or something?"

"Oh, that. Don't worry about it."

Breathing in this room was already iffy, the air fifty years old and dusty, but thinking about how Sam might have been on the edge of some declaration or some shit makes breathing damn near impossible.

"So that was something, right?" Shivers are going up the back of Dean's neck. It's real hot in this closet, oxygen all used up probably, never mind the tiny crack under the door.

"Uh," Sam agrees. "Yeah, uh."

"Right," Dean says, kind of annoyed because Sam claims to talk about things, but he's being a tool, and not one of the sharp ones.

In the intervening three seconds, it's like an entire lifetime of tension has been wedged in, until Sam breaks it with a shift of his leg, and Dean knows without a doubt he's making adequate room for his dick in his jeans. Dean stops breathing.

"You know," Dean says, shrugging a shoulder.

Sam almost drags a shelf down onto himself hoisting himself up to his knees in front of Dean, but he somehow rights it and then he’s there, looking up at Dean, mouth parted.

Dean doesn't say a word, just swallows but it goes weirdly, his eyes on Sam. Sam puts a hand on each of Dean's thighs to hold him in place, no mistaking that. He closes his eyes, flexing until Dean lets out a quiet breath, shifts his feet apart half an inch to give Sam room.

"Um," Sam mumbles.

Dean pulls Sam's head back by his hair to look him in the eyes. His hair's soft, girl. Dean tugs a little.

Then pulls away. "Wait. Do you hear—"

Dean surges back across the room the second Sam starts the thought. A pile of folders fall against his back from a top shelf, and when he can hear past his heart beating to _don't get caught, don’t get caught_ , Dean can make out someone whistling out in the hallway.

Sam hasn't moved from where he was kneeling, his eye big in the half-dark. He whispers, "Is it Kevin?"

"Yeah, I think so," Dean whispers back. His voice doesn't sound like much, just a really pathetic rasp.

"Uh," says Sam.

Dean's doesn't trust himself to do anything because Sam's got sweat soaked in a V down the front of his t-shirt and Dean's legs are weak with want.

Sam says, "Wait, should we..."

"Sam," Dean barks. "Eyes up here."

Outside, the whistling stops. They're frozen in place. Dean thinks he should call out but neither of them does.

The whistling starts up again presently and begins to moves down the hall.

Sam springs into action.

"Hey!" He bangs on the door. "Hey, Kev! Open up!"

There's a shriek from the hallway, then Dean yells, "Kevin, it's us!"

The door swings open.

"Oh," says Kevin. "It's just you guys."

"Yeah, who else would it be?" says Dean.

Sam hightails it out of there.

"Sam, hold on a sec," Dean shouts. He loses a second watching Sam go, and now Sam’s down the hall, to the main room.

Sam strides past the shelves and tables and Charlie drinking in front of her computer. As much as Dean would love to hang out with someone with less drama in her life, maybe hear some fun facts about the Good Witch, Dean keeps following Sam.

"Dude, slow down," he says, trying to ignore the spike of panic in his chest. Because Sam is climbing the stairs, jacket in one hand, keys in the other, and Dean’s head is already starting to hurt.

"I just need some air," Sam says, reaching the top of the metal staircase.

"Like hell you do," says Dean, making it to the first step. "It’s ok," he tells the room. "Curse. I’ll be right back."

And he leaves, hearing Charlie repeat, "Curse?" and Kevin answer, "It’s a minor misunderstanding."

Dean tries to jog the stairs and manages admirably despite how every footfall shoots pain up through to his head, a sharp throbbing which ebbs the closer he makes it toward Sam. 

When he makes it out into cold sunlight, Sam’s just closing the driver side door of the car.

"Don’t you do it," Dean warns, chest heaving. He’s in pretty good shape, but he doesn’t run a half marathon every other day like someone he knows.

That someone doesn't look at him and screeches off before Dean can reach the car, leaving him with nothing but tire tracks.

There follows a good half minute of panic where Dean’s chest feels like it’s full of fishing wire, the fly cast and speeding off toward Sam, Dean desperately trying not to just break into a sprint and follow.

He pushes a balled up fist into his temple, willing away the ache there. "Ok," he says to himself. "Think, think."

Eventually, his eyes land on something glinting behind a rock. "Now that’s what I’m talking about."

He hotwires Charlie’s scooter.

He skids down the gravel road, spraying rocks, barely maintaining balance, and manages to clip the helmet on and then speeds up, getting a feel for the thing. He doesn’t need to know which weird back-country road Sam took, doesn’t need to look for clues of any sort or track his cell. He can feel which direction Sam’s gone off to, a solid tug in the right direction.

As he catches up, his head feels better, and Sam seems to be feeling the same relief because the car stops swerving toward the shoulder.

Sam parks at the supermarket of all places. Dean gets to be that asshole who takes up a whole space with his tiny scooter out front and some guy who works there has the gall to raise an eyebrow at Dean’s wheels.

Dean stalks Sam through the grocery store. Past the bread, past the refrigerators of frozen dinners. He avoids carts. He knows Sam can feel him approaching and that Sam is hiding in the produce section. Dean rounds a final aisle and stops to watch Sam handling vegetables, suddenly at a loss. His only plan was to keep Sam in eyesight, but now what? He considers throwing a watermelon at him but refrains.

Sam’s looking down at some celery when Dean walks up next to him. He has a very concerned expression on his face, and doesn't acknowledge Dean's presence.

"Very funny," Dean says. Sam’s arm is a warm and solid under his hand. Sam on the other hand, is still standing like Dean found him, mute. "Sam?"

"No one’s ever died of a sex curse," Sam tells both Dean and the lady reaching past them for a cucumber.

"You do not know that," Dean jokes. "Come on."

He pays for Sam's vegetables out of the goodness of his heart, and then leads Sam out the door.

Sam gestures to Charlie's scooter. "Hey is that—"

"Yeah, we'll figure that out later," says Dean. "Unless you want to share."

Sam frowns. "No, thank you. Charlie’s going to kill you, you realize."

"No way. I’m her favorite." 

Sam gives him a look. Dean grins back and they get in the car. Dean doesn't turn the key right away.

They watch an old lady drive away with coffee cup on top of the car.

"You know," says Sam, and Dean thinks there's no way he's going to talk about it. Until Sam goes and says, "Maybe we should just do it."

That sends something wrong all through Dean. Sam's more clear headed now, makes it sound like not just a possibility, but an eventuality. Dean's gone and convinced Sam that he's going to have to commit incest to get them out of this, when really it was Dean's own stupid actions that landed them here. 

"I mean—"

"Listen," Dean says, cutting Sam off. He looks Sam in the eye to get the point accross. "No one’s sleeping with anyone because of some curse, you hear me? Sam?"

Sam frowns at him, ready for a fight. Then he shuts down. "Yeah. Ok."

"Ok," Dean agrees. It's decided. "I'm gonna figure this out," he tells Sam. "Don't you worry."

 

 

 

"Have you found anything?" Sam asks Kevin the second they get back, stomping down the stairs like a rampaging yeti.

Kevin’s joined Charlie, and each of them have half-empty glasses of whiskey on hand. He's obviously reached a deeper level of despair.

At the sight of Sam, his eyes go wide. Dean shakes his head vehemently when Kevin looks his way.

"Uh, no," Kevin says. "Not...not yet."

Sam’s shoulders slump. He shakes his head. "Alright. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks for trying." 

"I mean, I’m sure we’ll find something soon," Kevin calls after him. They all watch Sam’s back disappear through the door, after which Kevin turns to ask Dean in a harsh whisper, "What the hell? What the _hell_ are we going to _do_?"

"Gotta go," Dean says, and jerks his head to the door. "I'll text you."

"Whatever," says Kevin, and goes back to his computer. 

"So," Dean says. He hangs in the doorway, a hand on the frame. Sam's standing in the middle of Dean's room, looking down at the bedside table, at nothing.

"I'm going to sleep," Sam says. "Forever." He falls into bed.

Dean nods slowly. "Right, ok, good idea."

His phone beeps a second later, and he sneaks it out of his pocket to peek at it.

_How about Crowley?_

He sighs and types back, _you’re obsessed with crowley._

In the time it takes for Dean to kick off his shoes, Kevin responds immediately with a block of text. _I’m just saying, he probably knows about this kind of thing. He’s a demon and he told me once that he knew about every kind of deal known to angel and man. Also, I’m not obsessed with Crowley, he’s just the asshole who killed my mom. All I’m saying is, it’s worth a shot._

"Kid’s got quick fingers," Dean mutters.

Sam rolls over. "What?"

"Nothing," Dean says, and types, _i’ll think about it. you’re doing good._

"You going to stand there all night or what?" Sam asks him as Kevin sends over, _Can I tell Charlie?_

"No!" Dean says. "I mean, ‘yes!’" He texts Kevin, _No!_ , imagining Charlie’s disappointment, and then asks Sam, "You really going to sleep?"

"I’m tired," Sam says, like a five year old.

"Yeah," Dean says. He sits at the edge of the bed and strips off his jacket. "Me, too."

"Look, Sam."

"What?"

We've been through a lot of the bad, ok? And this is just one more hit. We always find a way out. I'm gonna fix this."

Dean hangs his jacket over the chair, glancing over at Sam who’s on his back staring blankly up at the ceiling.

"And for what it's worth, I'm sorry." 

"Not your fault," Sam says.

Dean watches Sam roll over. He's gotta fix this, Dean thinks as he strips down. He owes it to Sam Maybe Crowley is an option.

He leaves his jeans in a pile on the floor and checks his phone for a response from Kevin, which reads: _Oh come on. Charlie won't freak._

Dean considers for a minute before responding. _Fine. But only about the sex curse. Not the angel._

_You honestly think that’s worse? Whatever._

Dean places his phone and keys on the bedside table, next the family photos and the pizza delivery card, and then crawls under the covers Sam left folded back like an invitation. He switches off the light. He'll fix it in the morning. But for now—

"Dean?" Sam asks in the dark.

"Yeah?"

Sam pauses for a long time. "You’re in this as much as I am. It’s not your fault," he finally says, into the pillow by the sound of it. "I'm having a hard time, but it's my thing, not yours. Not your fault."

Dean makes himself comfortable. "Sure feels like it."

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, just remembers pressing himself up against the wall again, as far from Sam as he can possibly manage in a queensize bed with two tall dudes in it. There was a time when Sam had barely hit five feet. What had happened to that?

It might be his last thought. Then suddenly he’s waking up feeling awesome, like he’s well-rested hours later, hydrated. Like his body’s been supercharged.

He shifts and relaxes back against someone, someone he’s been dreaming about maybe, some tall person who noses the back of his head. Something’s wrong here, but he tries to ignore it in favor of sighing and adjusting into a better position.

A big hand lands on Dean’s stomach. Dean stretches from his toes up to his fingertips, hand hitting the headboard and feeling a nice pull in his lower back. He rubs back again, more deliberately this time, feeling the dick that’s hard up against his ass.

And just like that, he is suddenly awake. Very, very awake. It's Sam’s arm tugging him back against him, Sam’s nose pushing against the back of Dean’s ear.

Sam.

"Ngh," Dean moans. He can feel Sam's breath against the side of Dean’s face.

"You awake?" Sam asks.

"Now I am." Sam’s hand flexes at Dean's hip.

Dean waits with his eyes closed, waiting for Sam to pull away or call his bluff, either or, but Sam does neither. Yeah, there's something Dean's got to fix, but he also has the hottest thing pressed up behind him, pretty much offering. Dean is not that strong. 

It's black as pitch, and Dean's more comfortable than he's been in years, lust rolling at a slow build. He’s warm and feels like he’s lain out in a bed of rose petals and he feels like maybe if he feels this good, maybe Sam does too. He wants to get his mouth on Sam.

"I'm not sure what's going on," Sam tells him. "But I can’t imagine how it could mean anything good."

"You're right," Dean says. "Totally right, so let's just—"

"Totally," says Sam.

Neither of them move away. Instead, Sam presses a hand down the front of Dean’s shirt, all the way to rub the heel of his hand over Dean’s dick. Dean melts back against him with an embarrassing groan. 

Sam loosens his arms so Dean can turn. Which brings them face to face. A slight miscalculation.

"Sam," he says.

Sam's mouth is three inches away, if that. "Yeah?" His arms tighten again. 

"Here," Dean says, his mouth brushing Sam’s.

Sam’s eyes flash neon blue in the dark, so blinding Dean throws himself back against the wall, head hitting the bedpost.

"Sin!" Ezekiel roars in Sam’s voice.

Dean throws a hand up over his eyes and kicks out. "Jesus H! What the fucking fuck!"

Ezekiel roars again and Dean yells back, flailing out with one arm, but Ezekiel is stronger. He blocks against Dean’s knee and grabs his wrists in vice grips.

The light switches on.

Dean flinches but nothing happens, opens one eye at a squint to see Sam up on one elbow on the other side of the bed, sleep tousled and shirtless with the most offended expression on face. "Yeah, real mature, Dean," he says, tone hurt. "Real fucking mature."

"How is he—" Dean gasps.

Sam’s frown deepens. "What?"

Dean can’t catch his breath. The spell should have worked. It's clear now that it didn't. Two days of things being fine. Two days of Ezekiel lying in wait. Thinking about it now, Dean feels stupid. It had seemed far, far too easy. He should have expected—

He looks back up at Sam, who's lying on his back now, waiting for Dean to stop his freak out, probably. If only it were that easy. Dean's gonna fix this thing, right now.

"Sorry," he says, and clambers over Sam in a tumble of sharp elbows and knees.

His feet hit the floor and he makes a break for it, grabbing his pants by the door and sprinting off down the hall.

"Dean!" Sam yells after him, but it’s muffled by the distance. The headache is swift and painful and stabs at the side of Dean’s head like someone just stabbed a spork in his brain. He yanks on the jeans, one leg at a time.

 

 

 

Dean didn’t put on his boots. The halls are blue in their eternal half-light and their glow beats into Dean's eyes like meat hammers. He turns his face away and soldiers on, each step like pushing a boulder uphill in teeth clenching, body aching pain. The further he gets down the hall, the harder he can feel his heart panging and a well of longing opens up like the sea inside him, and there's something in him that feels like it's trying to turn around.

The pain comes in waves and in one of the moments of respite he remembers that he's not just walking toward Crowley but walking toward the ex King of Hell who's trussed up in the equivalent of rubber bands in a lockbox.

Dean pulls a shelf from where it's bolted to the wall, accidentally but it's a good entrance. "You're going to tell me what you know about exorcizing angels," he orders Crowley. "And save the bullcrap."

Crowley lolls his head back. "Well good morning to you, too. Or is this afternoon? One can never tell in these parts."

"Answer the question," Dean growls.

"Is this about Sam and his holier-than-thou hitchhiker?"

Dean’s jaw drops. 

Crowley rolls his eyes. "Oh keep it together. I didn’t tell your brother then and I’m certainly not going to tell him now."

"How did you know? Does everyone know about this?"

"Except your darling cro magnon? Yes. You think us demons can't sniff out an angel a mile away with a devil's trap bagged over our heads, you haven't been watching."

Dean is boggled, fingers digging into a spare chair. "You can?" 

Crowley looks as one extremely unimpressed. "At least you have your looks."

"Well, I exorcized him, but things went sideways and I think I did something different."

Crowley nodded as much as the restraints allowed. "It would seem so."

"What do you mean it would seem?"

Crowley manages to look like he's in control of the situation than Dean, and he's got his hands bound up behind his back. "What makes you think I’m going to tell you?"

"Uh, I don’t know, you’re ass-glued to that spot and I’m pissed?"

"Alright, alright. I’ll give you the tidbit of information you desire. But you give me," Crowley says. "The dog."

"No fricken way," says Dean, uncertain what 'dog' stands for in this situation but sure he doesn’t want to give Crowley the whole thing.

"A bottle of whiskey," Crowley says. "Is what I meant. You moron," he adds for good measure. "Are you all heathens here or do you have anything you hold sacred? Bring it to me, for I intend to drink it. I’m parched and a wet whistle blows stronger, if you get my drift."

Dean recoils. "Ew."

"I’ll talk!" Crowley roars. "Bring me booze!"

"Ok! Jeeze," Dean says.

"I swear it’s like talking to a brick wall."

Dean doesn’t carry a flask on him, not since before Purgatory, so he takes great satisfaction in telling Crowley, "Don’t move," then he goes all the way down the hall to grab the crystal decanter from the main room, ignoring the terrible pain in his abdomen that says it's time to get back to Sam now.

When he’s back with a glass, he pours it down Crowley’s throat and Crowley doesn’t make a snide comment afterward, just smacks his lips and says, "Well I’ll be a monkey’s arse. Your moonshine’s not half bad."

Dean takes the glass from him. "Now talk."

Crowley looks pleased. "Well, for one, there’s still an angel in him."

"Yeah, I know. I just found out the hard way. He’s still in there and, bonus, I can’t stop touching Sam."

"Which brings me to the second point," says Crowley. "It seems your souls have become entwined. Your little spell was second-rate."

"No, we used the tablet."

"Well, I’m sorry, maybe it was your pronunciation, because there’s an angel still lying dormant inside of him. I can sense it from here. It's trapped but at dangerous capacity."

Dean rubs a hand over his eyes and sits in the chair. "Crap." He should have known it was too good to be true. His head is killing him even though they followed the spell to the letter— the gross potion, the chanting, the whole nine. He thinks back to the bathroom. "Wait. Would water change anything? Because Sam was in the bath when I did the spell."

"I see. And were you also ‘in the bath’?"

Crowley is far too amused by this and Dean rolls his eyes, no stranger to Crowley’s implications. "Not at first, but things got messy and I fell in. There was a crazy shock and then I thought the spell worked. But maybe that wasn't supposed to happen."

"Electricity is power. And water is a conductor," says Crowley. "So either prophet wonder bungled the lines, or you electrocuted your souls, throwing that angel into a deep sleep and welding your soul's to Sam's in the process. I can see your soul stretching out of your body toward Sam's right now, and I bet you can feel it, too."

Dean touches his chest where there's a hard hole. "Really? What? Our souls are actually entwined?""

"Well, they’re trying to be. As in, twisted so far up each other’s arses you’re having soul sex. You could call it hot if that’s your thing. Anyway, souls are the consistency of chewing gum."

"Oh my god," Dean says. "So what do I do? Do I…"

"You’d like that, wouldn’t you?" Crowley sighs and looks at the ceiling. "I don’t know. It’s not in my job description."

"You don’t _know_?" Dean does not have time for this.

"Why would I have to ever deal with something as stupid as two humans bungling a spell so bad their souls are attempting to merge? That’s disturbing as well as dire, and I want no hand in it."

There's always a point where Crowley stops being useful, and they've reached it. Dean sits back in his seat and tries to think. Crowley talks a little more but Dean tunes him out, trying to think. This is a case, he tells himself. He solves supernatural mysteries as a lifestyle choice, he can figure this one out.

He reviews everything he knows, up to the point of Sam furtively touching him, like if it's dark and no one sees it didn't count, then the moment Ezekiel came out.

Dean stands, the chair sliding back. "That’s it!"

He knows what he needs to do. It involves talking to Ezekiel again, which sucks, but Dean's come this far and he's not letting that dick win.

He presses the heels of his palms into his forehead and then gets up, giving in to the tug of purpose in his chest. He barely looks where he's going, just lets his legs carry him, experiences the sobbing relief of his sickness lessening, until his desperate yearning is more of a hopeful twinge and Sam is 500 feet to the left, but two rooms over, in the pink tile, fluffy towel, footed-bath room.

"Back to where it started," Dean says, shaking himself out, blinking, feeling somewhat like a human again. He takes a deep breath and heads to the bathroom.

 

 

 

Where he lurks by the sink. The spray of the shower is loud and ghostly at this time of night. On the other side of that curtain, Sam is being haunted by an angel. Dean was the one to put it there and Dean's going to be the one to take it out.

Dean flexes his hands by his sides. He has to do it. Now. He has to talk to Ezekiel.

"Really?" Sam says when he hears Dean's ragged breathing. He jerks the curtain back.

"Ah," Dean tries. "You almost out?"

Sam makes an infuriated noise. "Are you really going to ruin my cold shower?"

Dean thinks about this with interest. "Yes," he says, feeling inordinately pleased. His head and chest feel better and he's on his way to getting rid ofan angel, so he's allowed a good mood.

"Such a dick," Sam says, and Dean can hear him putting a bottle back on the shelf, slapping his hands over his limbs. Sam says, "Could you at least grab me my toothbrush?"

Dean grabs the purple one, the toothpaste, and goes and thrusts them in a fist past the curtain.

Sam’s wet hand brushes his, and the cloudy, comforting feeling of Sam’s fingers isn’t new, but it makes Dean's insides do backflips. It reminds him how he almost got laid earlier. "Thanks," he manages.

Sam gets out of the shower accompanied by a cloud of coconut smelling steam and runs a towel all over himself while Dean examines his own fingernails for dried blood or whatever, and even when Sam‘s pulled on boxers and a t-shirt, Dean doesn’t look up.

"So, what’s up?" Sam asks. He comes to the sink, rubbing a towel over his head and Dean lets himself look, sidelong, from where he's leanign against the wall. Nothing is up. "You pissed about something?" Sam asks.

"No, I’m not pissed about something!"

Sam’s eyebrows climb his face. Dean sighs.

"Here," he says instead of answering, taking the bandages from the counter and reaching for Sam’s arm. "Here, let me do that."

Sam shrugs and stays where he is, puts out his arm when Dean comes closer. This is normal, civil. They’re not talking about what happened in the room. In Dean's bed. And for these couple minutes before he attempts to talk to Ezekiel, Dean’s got everything under control. 

He takes a towel and pats Sam’s arm dry, then squeezes neosporin-like goop out of the tube and applies it to Sam’s arm. The unhealed wounds look like they smart, stitches straight and running the smoothness of Sam's forearm.

Close as they are, Dean can feel Sam full-body-tense when Dean runs ointment up the slits in his arm. Dean steps in a little closer when he grabs for the gauze and rolls it around, beginning just below the elbow and working his way down, loose enough. Sam is warm and shower damp, and Dean only chances looking at them in the mirror. He takes in their posture, angled close, looks at his hands stilled around Sam’s arm, looks at Sam’s t-shirt wetting at the front with undried chest underneath. Dean looks up in time to see a droplet of water speeding down Sam’s neck.

Sam's looking at him.

"Does it hurt?" Dean asks. "Your arm."

"No," Sam says.

"Right."

Dean keeps wrapping. Every time his fingers brush Sam’s bare skin it sends warm, dull sparks through his fingers, up his arms.

Dean thinks about Ezekiel looking back at him. He has to talk to him. He’s going to do it now. 

"Sam," Dean says.

Sam looks, well, kind of hopeful. He glances at Dean's mouth and Dean decides to do it right this time. He grabs Sam by the collar and drags him down into a kiss.

Ezekiel flashes out, right on schedule. Dean steps back, out of reach and at the ready.

"Look, begging’s not my style," Dean says. "I've asked you once, but you didn't listen. Get the hell out of my brother. This is as nice as nice is gonna get."

"He’s not done yet," Ezekiel says. "You forcing me into dormancy has caused Sam to weaken."

"You were dormant for two days and my brother seemed good. He seemed like himself. He’s healed enough. Now go."

"If I leave him now—" Ezekiel starts.

"If you leave him now, what?" Dean says. "Because you’ve been out of commission for days now, and Sam hasn’t been doing half bad. Why is that?"

Sam’s face screws up in thought, like Ezekiel’s looking inward, examining Sam’s rough edges. He doesn’t say anything.

"It's because it's not Sam who needs healing now, is it? It's that _you’ll_ be weak."

"It can’t be certain— I don't understand why your brother has been fine without me."

Ezekiel looks so confused that Dean could almost believe him.

"Why would that be?"

A light seems to dawn over Sam's face. "Interesting."

"Interesting? Interesting how?" Interesting doesn't usually mean good with the heavenly type.

"The bond you created between your souls. In certain instances, a damaged soul will draw energy from the soul that’s intact, and it will heal itself," Ezekiel admits begrudgingly. "That’s actually very inventive. Although I’ve only known it to work with twin souls."

"Twin souls?"

"Soulmates," Ezekiel says. Sam's face is stormy now. "By all accounts, you should be dead right now."

Soulmates, Dean thinks, not being able to help the stupid grin that crosses his face. It must really be true. "Well, that's embarrassing," he says. "Now, I kicked this one in the ass, however accidentally. And you’re going to leave now. And Sam’ll be fine, I'll be fine. It’ll all be fine, because you know what? Humans are weak and we are sickly but we fight and we get better. It takes time, but it’s worth it."

Sam’s face is eerie in the low bathroom light as Ezekiel considers. He sure takes his freaking time. When he finally answers, Dean’s been getting ready for plan B, or hell, they must be on plan XYZ by now, but for once things go his way.

"I’ll leave your brother," Ezekiel finally says, and then frowns. "But certainly not because you asked. There are some things I cannot abide, and I sense I’ll play party to such things if I were to stay."

"Like what?"

"First, answer me this," says Ezekiel. "What is it that has driven you to the ends of the earth to save Sam, time and again. Is it fealty? Obedience to your father? Honor?"

"Uh," Dean blusters, ready with the answer before the questions even asked. His face goes hot even though he’d only be admitting it to a brick wall, some angel. "Because…" He says, clearing his throat. "Because I— I love him." 

Dean almost thinks it’s Sam who squints at him, but it’s Ezekiel who says, "When I mentioned this before, you said you did not do the whole ‘love thing.’"

Dean did say that. "So sue me, I lied," he says, feeling more certain now that he’s telling the truth. He gathers steam. "And Sam loves me, too. You said it before, you can see in his head. Tell me he doesn't want me to bone him ten ways till Tuesday. Go on."

Dean waits. It had never occurred to him until this moment that Ezekiel knew better than him on one subject, had a window right into Sam’s heart.

"No," Ezekiel says, which sends ice straight through Dean until Ezekiel says, with some regret, "Sam wants to bone _you_ instead. But nonetheless. To clarify: If I stay in your brother, you plan to enact incest?"

"Yep. Fucking, sucking, making out—" Dean confirms. "The whole nine yards."

Ezekiel as Sam looks torn, and somewhat disgusted. "Excuse me," he says. "I just threw up in Sam’s mouth. I must go now— This is not for the eyes of Heaven," he decides, and with a ringing that shoots goosebumps over all of Dean’s skin, flashes out of Sam’s eyes and mouth in a flare that lights up the whole room and then leaves the room in shadow.

The only sound now is the drip of the faucet and Dean's heartbeat in his mouth. He touches his face, his chest, and feels normal, for lack of a better world. Then Sam collapses in a broken pile.

"Sam!" Dean grabs him by the shoulders. "Sammy? Sam?" They either did this right or didn't. His head is clear in panic, and the cold wetness of Sam’s skin under his hands doesn’t do a thing to calm him down.

Sam slumps further into Dean’s arms, and Dean pulls him upright. "No, no, no. Sam, wake up?"

Sam jerks up inhaling a life breath, raggedly.

"Did I really pass out mid-kiss?" Sam gasps. He blinks and shakes his head viciously, spraying water out of his eyes, touching his chest then moving on to touch Dean's face. "Dean?"

"You— you slipped." Dean says. He's such an asshole, but he's 99 percent sure it worked this time. He swallows past fear and relief as Sam smiles.

"You gonna do that again or what?" Sam asks. "I've been waiting for you to kiss me since forever, and now you're gonna just sit there?"

"Like hell," Dean says, and jumps him, kissing him against the tile so hard their teeth knock. For his trouble, he receives an accidental knee to the groin and what will turn into a black eye by the following Friday when Sam flails out to pull him closer.

"You’re alive," gasps Sam. "And I'm alive, and hey, I think the fall helped the curse."

"Let's just forget the curse," Dean says. The phantom tug of Sam’s soul to his is gone, the ache in his chest a normal one. "It already feels like it was all a dream."

 

 

 

"Wait, angel?" Sam asks a week later when Cas, the dick, lets slip about Zeke.

Dean rounds on Cas. "You've been back in the bunker five freaking minutes!"

"I'm just trying to get caught up to speed." Cas shrugs.

Sam steps between them, jaw clenched. "What angel?" 

"Uh," says Dean. He gets a chair between them just in case this gets violent.

"I'm going to get another burrito," Cas tells them. "In the kitchen."

He beats his retreat.

Sam doesn't let it go. "Dean?"

"I can explain," Dean says. He tries to do the puppydog eyes but that is so not his thing.

"Well," Kevin says from the other end of the table. "I'll let you two talk—"

"Me, too," Charlie says. They leave through a side door.

Dean shouts after them. "That's the closet, you cowards!"

"Dean." Sam's voice is sharp.

When Dean turns back to look at his brother, Sam looks more pissed than he has in a long time. "Ok, so I'm gonna owe you a lot of blowjobs," Dean says in placating tones. "I'm a sure thing if that helps any."

"It doesn't," Sam grinds out. "Tell me about the angel."

Dean has him sit like he's about to tell him a nightmare bedtime story. "You should know," he says. "This story has a happy ending. Sorry, I know you hate getting the ending first."

Sam sighs, grabbing Dean's hand and holding it. "Just tell me what you did," he says.

"Well," says Dean. "You know those times when one guy puts another guy inside a third guy?" 

It's a good opener, Dean thinks while he pats Sam's hand in support, and a great story. The ending's a good one, as promised, and it can only go uphill from there.


End file.
